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Where I stand on the issues I stand firm on a number of vital public policy issues. My positions derive from the truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the protections guaranteed by the Constitution.
Abortion / life issues If the Declaration of Independence states our creed, there can be no right to abortion, since it means denying the most fundamental right of all to human offspring in the womb. The Declaration states plainly that we are all created equal, endowed by our Creator with our basic human rights. But if human beings can decide who is human and who is not, the doctrine of God-given rights is utterly corrupted. Abortion is the unjust taking of a human life and a breach of the fundamental principles of our public moral creed. Some people talk about "viability" as a test to determine which human offspring have rights that we must respect, and which do not. But might does not make right. So the mere fact that the person in the womb is wholly in its mother's physical power and completely dependent upon her for sustenance gives her no right whatsoever with respect to its life, since the mere possession of physical power can never confer such a right. Therefore, medical procedures resulting in the death of the unborn child, except as an unintended consequence of efforts to save the mother's physical life, are impermissible. As for the so-called "right to suicide," and related practices such as euthanasia: whatever emotional arguments we make on their behalf, they represent a violation of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Our rights, including the right to life, are unalienable. If we kill ourselves or consent to allow another to do so, we both destroy and surrender our right to life. We act unjustly. We usurp the power that belongs solely to the Creator, and deny the basis of our claim to human rights. Affirmative action In the 1960s, the civil rights movement sought the assistance of government to enforce the fundamental principle that all men are created equal. But today's civil rights groups have abandoned that principle in favor of preferential treatment for groups defined by race or sex. This is simply wrong. We cannot cure a past injustice with another injustice. Moreover, preferential affirmative action patronizes American blacks, women, and others by presuming that they cannot succeed on the own. Preferential affirmative action does not advance civil rights in this country. It is merely another government patronage program that gives money and jobs to the few people who benefit from it, and breeds resentment in the many who do not. It divides us as a people, and draws attention away from the moral and family breakdown that is the chief cause of the despair and misery in which too many of our fellow citizens struggle to live decently. I am opposed to quotas. I am against the idea that you should be deciding on the basis of race what positions people should have in the workplace. I believe in helping people get to the starting line Agriculture Throughout the 20th century, the five- and ten-point plans of the politicians have come and gone, and every time the result has been the same Family agriculture was placed in serious jeopardy early in this century, when at the same time that we surrendered our economic sovereignty by accepting a federal income tax, we also consolidated centralized control of the distribution of our financial resources through the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. A centralized banking system is incompatible with the existence of family farms, because it lacks any kind of obligation to The real key to saving the family farm, however, is not economic reform, but a renewed understanding of why the family farm is worth saving in the first place. The family farm is not crucial because we need to have family farms in order to eat. Actually, a consolidated farm system of big agri-businesses could theoretically feed the country. Rather, we need family farm for its indispensable value in sustaining our nation's strong moral character. We must remember what men like Thomas Jefferson thought was required for us to survive as a free people. He pointed out the connection between the maintenance of liberty and the characteristics that develop from a strong population of what he called yeoman farmers. Yeoman farmers were characterized by a certain combination of discipline, common sense, independence of spirit and mind, love of liberty, and a deep sense of duty, responsibility, and obligation The key to rediscovering our commitment to the family farm is to rediscover our commitment to renewing, strengthening, and preserving the moral character that America needs to survive in freedom. If we are to remain free, we had better preserve the seedbeds of liberty. We had better preserve those parts of our society and culture through which we pass on the moral allegiance to American life, and the kind of heart, mind, and character that will sustain it. Throughout the history of our country, this task has been one of the primordial results and responsibilities not only of the family Campaign finance reform Any acceptable proposal for reforming the way that American political campaigns are financed must be based on the premise of the Constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of association. The right of free association includes the right to associate our money with the causes we believe in, and to do so in any amount that we think is necessary to get the job done. For government to dictate what we can do under the rubric of "campaign finance reform" is a total violation of our Constitutional rights, and we should force our politicians to abandon it. Campaign finance reform typically turns out to be incumbency protection, anyway. Professional politicians are unlikely to devise a system that isn't in their own interest. We need to devise instead a system for financing our political contests in the interest of our freedom. The premises that should govern such a system are simple. The first principle is that there will be no dollar vote without a ballot vote. Only people who can walk into the voting booth and cast a vote for a candidate should be able to make a contribution to his campaign. This means no corporate contributions, and no union contributions, except from unions truly acting on the authority of members freely associating and intending to make a contribution. There must be no financial contributions whatsoever from any entities that are not actual, breathing voters. The second principle is that when anyone casts a dollar vote, it should be publicized immediately. The whole world should know who is giving how much, and to whom, so that the voters can enforce the result. If we have this simple system of liberty based on our Constitutional rights, then we will be able to police the system effectively without the help of ambitious politicians. The people at the voting booth will decide what special interest should be driven out of politics, by driving out the politicians who represent them. We should not try to have bureaucrats and politicians enforcing this kind of political discipline. At the end of the day, it's up to us, the voters, to discipline the political system. But we can't do so if we don't have the information we need, of which the money trail is a principal component. Rich people who choose to give large sums to candidates and causes they believe in should be forced right out into the open political arena, into the heat and dust of the political fray. They should not be permitted to hide behind PACs and camouflage, but must rather stand publicly behind the support they are giving, If they are willing to bear that kind of heat, then let them make their contributions. Many of the less scrupulous contributors who are manipulating the system today would not be willing to stand this kind of public scrutiny. And that will itself regulate participation of money in our politics. Ultimately, publicity tied with informed voting is the best way to regulate this system. It is the only regulation truly consistent with our rights and duties as free citizens, and happens also to be the only kind of proposal that will pass the Constitutional test. I therefore absolutely oppose the McCain-Feingold / Shays-Meehan bill, and I urge all grassroots Americans to lobby tenaciously for its repeal. Crime Costly domestic government programs to prevent and control crime actually deal with problems resulting from the breakdown of societal standards and personal self-discipline. Our first priority should be to restore the moral and material strength of the marriage-based, two-parent family. Family disintegration and the refusal to take personal responsibility are the primary contributing factors in crime, violence, poverty, and numerous other social problems. We must pursue policies that will not only preserve our liberties, but keep those who wish to harm law-abiding citizens off the streets. Barack Obama has taken his stand. He has voted to coddle gang members and protect the rights of sex offenders. He voted against extra penalties for gang-related crimes. He voted against making it a crime for accused gang members free on bond or bail to associate with other gang members. He also voted against prohibiting early release of sex offenders. I will vote to put these criminals away. Gang violence is a serious cancer that threatens our neighborhoods and local communities. Our children are caught in the crossfire of drive by shootings, young children are inducted into a life of crime and drugs. This is a huge national problem with tentacles that reach across the globe. We need leaders in Washington with the willpower to get the gangs off the streets, to go after the criminals and stop them before they reach our local communities. How many more children must we sacrifice to this dangerous lifestyle? Death penalty / child sentencing I believe that there are certain circumstances in which the death penalty is in fact essential to our respect for life. If we do not, in our law, send the message to everyone that by calculatedly, coldly taking a human life At the same time, I am opposed to lowering the age at which we adjudge people to be adults. The tendency in that direction now, to want to treat our children as if they are adults, is a confession of our own failure as a society to maintain the structures of family life, to maintain the basis of moral education. As a result, we have children now in whom there exists a shocking moral void, and those children engage in some acts that are heinous to us. But we need to respect the difference that exists between children and adults. We need to insist, from adults, moral accountability and moral responsibility Death tax I support the elimination of the estate tax or death tax. Unfortunately, to all of us who are working to create a small legacy to pass onto our children, my opponent has committed a great injustice. Barack Obama voted to preserve the Illinois Death Tax. In other words, he made it that much more complicated to pass the family farm or the family business on to our children. Instead, he voted to pass the tax bill onto our children. This is wrongheaded, and I work to eliminate the death tax so our children can fully and freely share in the fruits of our labor. Defense / foreign policy / Israel As the leader of the free world, America has a right and a duty to do all in her power to protect herself at home and abroad. We must vigilantly defend our sovereignty, independence, and identity as Americans. In doing so, we must be certain that our policies, military might, and foreign relationships are executed with prudence and justice. The Constitution places on the federal government a solemn obligation to provide for our nation's "common defense" and to undertake those policies that best fulfill that goal, including the nurturing of alliances with friendly nations. I believe that our best and most trustworthy alliances are cemented in shared principles. The nature of America's special relationship and commitment to Israel, for example, is a moral obligation America's friendship with Israel reflects a moral truth about who we are and what we stand for. In our foreign policy and international alliances, we must never be subservient to merely pragmatic considerations of money, oil, or any other expediency. We must set our course mindful that we are morally obligated to always stand foursquare with those who fight on the front lines of freedom and representative government But in order to maintain our ability to respect an essentially moral commitment in our foreign policy, we must ensure The greatest danger that we, Israel, and our other true allies face today is that America has already embarked upon the abandonment of those moral principles that are meant to guarantee the liberties that we cherish as a people, and that we hold up as the better destiny of the world. Our national creed, the Declaration of Independence, tells us that our rights come from the Creator, yet we have forbidden our teachers in the schools even to mention His Name. All our claims to liberty and legitimacy as a free people rest on the premise that our rights should be exercised with respect for the authority of the Creator, yet we have practically expunged the very concept of Him from our public discourse. We squabble over and even deny those ideas that constitute the basis of our moral character and our moral decency. This betrayal eats away every day at our integrity, at our conscience, at our moral self-confidence. And that has very real and practical consequences, because moral self-confidence is part of what is required to sustain our claims to liberty, and to embolden us to fight in its defense. It is very hard to sustain the claim to rights and liberty if we believe we're not decent enough to use them well. And, when confronted by ruthless aggression, it is very hard then to remain a reliable ally. This is the real crisis that all who love and respect America, and who seek to defend true allies like Israel, are facing. And this crisis will eventually Economics What's the root of economics? "Economics" comes from the Greek "oikonomos." The word oiko meant household, and nomos meant the rules or regulations governing the household. Economics was the study of that which was required in order successfully to manage a household. Economics is founded upon the family. When somebody's telling you they're going to take care of economics, while they stand by and let your family be destroyed at its very heart, in its very principle, they couldn't possibly be telling you the truth. But we don't get it. We think economics is about money. No, it's not. If you really understood it, you'd realize money is not economics. It's about whether or not you have sustained the strength and integrity of your household, of your family relations, of all the strengths that can come when that network works the way it's supposed to. Have you noticed how people prosper when that's true, and how hard life gets for them when it's not? There's a reason for that. People say, "Well, Alan, you're always talking about how we need to respect the marriage-based family, how we need to do what's necessary so we'll maintain the moral discipline to commit ourselves to the future, to raise our children up decently, to put aside our own gratification so we can educate them in the way that they should go. You're always talking about how we must instill in their hearts that faith in God that is the true foundation of self-respect. Why are you always talking about morality?" Well, I'll tell you why: because without that moral integrity, we can't have strong families, and without strong families, we will not have a strong economy. The family is the basis of our economic success. Embryonic stem cell research If we are enjoined to respect human life, then we must respect that life at every stage, from conception onward. If we do not, then we are basically saying that there is some criterion on which we can declare that some human beings deserve respect, and others do not. But doesn't that violate the principle of equality? We say that all of us have equal rights that come from the hand of God. And yet we are willing to say that because a babe in the womb is not quite as well developed as we are, we can ignore the rights of that child. No medical advance, and certainly no material profit, justifies denying the claim to humanity of the embryonic human person. Those who try to justify it are driven from one tortured rationalization to another, none addressing the real issue. Being undeveloped, unconscious, unattractive, small, or unwanted Why, therefore, should we accept it in regard to embryonic research? No When we start making such invidious distinctions, we destroy the principle of equal rights. We can't claim rights for ourselves if we deny those rights to babes at any stage in their development. We ourselves don't want to be used as the basis for experiments without regard for our humanity The Declaration of Independence says we're all of us created equal. It doesn't make a distinction between whether that creation is published in the womb or in the petri dish. It just says that God's Will determines our dignity, not human action, not human intervention. In the forgetting of this principle, you open the door to a plethora of evils. In the remembering of it, you lay the solid foundation for further human progress Fair trade American "free trade" policy in recent years has increasingly involved grants of excessive authority to international organizations of questionable political legitimacy. The GATT/WTO agreement was a big mistake. The World Trade Organization undermines America's sovereign international economic interests. The American people must repudiate the policy of establishing unelected international bodies that act like the Supreme Court of the United States, striking down our domestic laws. We must repudiate disgraceful, profit-driven alliances with the despots in Beijing. And we must refuse to permit our representatives in Congress to volunteer for Constitutional impotence by granting "fast track" authority to the president to strike back room trade deals without the advice and consent of the Senate. I have always been a staunch defender of free enterprise and an opponent of the domineering bureaucracies, both national and international, which try to suffocate it. But I cannot stand with those so-called conservatives who believe that "free trade" is more important than free government, or the "fiscal conservatives" who seem to believe that money and economic advantage matter more than our right to constitutional, elective self-determination. Trade socialism must be defeated root and branch, even when it is called "free trade." I think we gave away a portion of our sovereignty that we should never have surrendered when we entered the WTO. It violates the fundamental principle of our way of life: no legislation without representation. I’m not interested in protectionism or withdrawal. But folks ought to be paying a premium price to enter this market, or else giving us something concrete in return that’s of tangible benefit to the American people. I believe we need to move away from negotiating multinational trade agreements, and ought to focus instead on cutting better deals by bargaining one-on-one with individual countries. I also believe we should impose tariffs on countries that undercut American farmers and manufacturers with cheap products. Free speech / censorship Questions involving prior censorship or restraint need to be approached with great care. We must exercise care in such matters because the power to censor can easily fall into arbitrary or dictatorial hands. Our country is safer when no one holds that kind of power. I am inclined, therefore, to respect the fact that people should be free to say and do certain things that others don't like. Nonetheless, we as a society Society is then entitled to establish clear standards and define the kinds of behavior or things permitted in a public place, so that we won't need to fear that our children will be polluted in a such an environment. We proceed to set up barriers in public libraries, on the Internet, in bookstores, and in movie houses and segregate the things that we don't want to give our children access to. Such public policy doesn't require government or its agents to restrain free expression. It simply requires society's delegated representatives to organize the distribution of the results of that expression, so that we can keep public places free of what are regarded as offensive influences or materials. This kind of approach doesn't, itself, involve censorship and abuse Health care I don't believe in government-controlled health care, and I think that what we need to look at is ways in which we can put the consumer in proper charge of their own health care plan, so we can drive the cost down, instead of up. Part of the problem with our present system, which I think has contributed to skyrocketing costs, is the fact that we have a third-party-payer system. You go home after you get the service, and you don't even know what it costs. If we bought cars that way, what do you think would happen to our car industry? We need to adopt plans, such as the one that President Bush is talking about, where people can set up tax-deductible medical savings accounts and combine that with catastrophic insurance that will guarantee them against the major liability and at the same time give them greater freedom, greater control, and a greater reward when they are making good, effective judgments on how to get their health care. This would put them in a better position to actually monitor the relationship between price and quality We also need to redefine what we are trying to pursue. I think the objective of the system should be health, not just health care, and that means taking what we've learned about the importance of diet, exercise, and fitness and including those in our concept of health care. We need to start putting together an approach that will aim at keeping people healthy, by using the knowledge we have about what needs to be done. Studies show that a lot of the diseases that are now debilitating people, especially in the area of cardiovascular disease, could be eliminated by changes in diet and exercise. To help lower health care costs, we also need to allow the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and Europe, and do other sensible things Homosexual rights In terms of civil rights discrimination, it is wrong to treat sexual orientation like race, for race is a condition beyond the individual's control. Sexual orientation, however, involves behavior, especially in response to passion. If we equate sexual orientation and race, we are saying that sexual behavior is beyond the individual's control and moral will. We cannot embrace such an understanding of civil rights without denying the human moral capacity, and with it the fitness of human beings for life in a free society. The effort to equate homosexual and lesbian relations with legal marriage represents a destructive assault on the heterosexual, marriage-based family. Immigration Our country's immigration policy should encourage legal immigration to be maintained or expanded, and illegal immigration to be curtailed. The policy should be enforced through existing laws. It's a travesty when those who have abided by the law and become citizens through the proper means are considered no different than those who have not. If we start extending all the privileges of life and citizenship to people who are not citizens and who are not here legally, then we're breaking down our own laws. And in breaking down those laws, we're creating a situation that will eventually damage our economy, damage our ability to deliver social services, damage our ability to maintain schools on an equitable basis, and so forth. It doesn't make sense. That's why I believe that we have to enforce our immigration laws, and that we shouldn't be putting laws on the books that will extend to non-citizens the privileges of citizenship, because I think you are actually inviting people to violate the law when you're doing that, you're decreasing the respect for the law. Nearby countries like Mexico have policies on immigration citizenship that are a lot tougher than ours, and they will actually peremptorily deport people whom they find to be in the country without proper papers and everything. But if you're in America and you're found to be in that condition, you can get a lawyer, and you can go to court and defend yourself Infanticide Barack Obama is so committed to the abortion position that he has even opposed legislation to stop the heinous practice of live-birth abortion He has done so three times. The bill would end a practice in some Illinois hospitals in which a child who is born alive in the course of a botched abortion The practice is so heinous that, when it came up in the Senate of the United States, the practice was rejected, 98-0. Even hardcore pro-abortion Senators like Teddy Kennedy and Barbara Mikulski voted against the continuation of this practice. And yet, Barack Obama is somebody who has voted to allow it to continue. It seems to me to be incomprehensible how someone could be as hard-hearted as that, and it's one of the things that drew me into serious consideration in this race. This is somebody who pays lip service to compassion and yet, when you get right down to it, he is willing to countenance things that are deeply shocking to the conscience to our people. Obama's position on the Infants Born Alive bill clearly illustrates that he's not just committed to abortion, he's committed to it in the most extreme form possible. If we ignore these kinds of things, I think it bespeaks a hardening of our own consciences that is unacceptable. Infrastructure The issue of infrastructure is like "fixing the plumbing." It ought to be a no-brainer. It's like owning a house--when the plumbing starts to fall into disrepair, you don't wait around as the whole place deteriorates. And so we ought to move to deal with those infrastructure problems that are clear Second, we have the problem of congestion in the air space over O'Hare that has been, I believe, held up by a whole bunch of political paralysis We need to break the political log-jam, we need to move to develop the infrastructural potential of this state--starting by looking at Rockford and what could be done there to develop a major airport, with 10,000-foot runways capable of handling both freight and passengers. That would help to relieve the pressure, with respect to O'Hare. We need to stop talking about the development of a south-suburban airport and start developing the plans that will make sure that we do it This notion that you start with something, and then later, when it becomes a problem, expensively revamp it and move on to something else, is unwise. We need a comprehensive, modular airport plan that would allow us to begin answering that problem, providing both the jobs and the economic opportunities for people who are in the south side and the south suburbs, and so forth, and to do it in a way that then allows us to build progressively, in the course of the next twenty years, to add on to that airport, as needed, in order to meet the challenges of Illinois' future. That can't be dealt with unless you are willing to deal with the problem of freight. And I think that here we are in danger of losing one of the most important assets of the state, if we're not willing to look at what needs to be done to improve the situation in terms of freight rail, and to get federal support and participation, so that we can develop that infrastructural priority. We also need to look at the way in which we connect the airports and the major areas with light rail that will allow us to move passengers easily between those airports that allow opportunity for goods and services to be moved in and out of the state. And finally, I think we need to integrate central and southern Illinois into this plan, by making sure that we have encouraged Amtrak to develop its full potential, in terms of rail transportation, that knits together our whole state. I think infrastructure ought to be a priority. Job creation It's important to remember that government does not create jobs. You can't have jobs without businesses. That's one of the things that I look at in my opponent's record, how he supported Gov. Blagojevich and all of the taxes, regulations, and fees that are strangling and destroying the business environment in Illinois. And then he goes around talking about jobs. How are you going to keep jobs if you are killing businesses, and how are you going to attract new businesses to Illinois if you won't address the problem of malpractice insurance rates that are driving doctors out of the state? How are you going to attract businesses to an area where there is not proper medical care? I think it is obvious that medical care, schools, and things of that nature are a vital part of the business environment. When you take steps to hinder the business environment by putting fees and regulations on businesses and related things, then you're killing jobs. I think you have to create an environment that is friendly to businesses in order to create jobs. Marriage Marriage is the God-ordained covenant between one woman and one man that provides the essential societal support for families. As we look at attempts to change that definition, we need to be very, very clear that it's not a question of being against individuals, per se. It's a question of looking at traditional marriage and what it requires, and saying we cannot allow, in principle, an understanding of marriage that excludes procreation. Because, that was God's plan. Marriage exists for the sake of procreation, for the commitment made, man and woman, to God's will as it is then exemplified in the child when the two become one flesh, and that is also a commitment of responsibility and self-sacrifice for the sake of respecting God's will for the future. And that is, I think, the serious understanding of marriage. If we were to adopt a view that just says, "Well, sex is pleasure for pleasure's sake," and we can actually base marriage on that understanding of human sexuality, we would be lying to ourselves. We would basically be telling people marriage is about what you get out of it, marriage is about whether you're taking pleasure from it. And you and I both know that there are times in the course of raising children when there's a lot of sacrifice, a lot of grief, a lot of pain that we're putting aside the things that we would think at some level of our own pleasures we would want, because we're willing to be responsible under God's will for doing what we need to do as parents to satisfy our responsibilities. Now, that can be a source of great joy at the end of the day, of great satisfaction, of great contentment, of great true happiness You can't credibly advance an idea of marriage that sells short the need for that kind of lifelong, serious, and responsible commitment to God's will in the form of your commitment to be responsible parents. And I think that's what's involved in our debate right now The assault that's now taking place on traditional marriage should be taken seriously by everyone, because I think that it represents the last and final step in the surrender of the true understanding of marriage Pornography I'm fond of reminding people that the meaning of the word "pornography" in its Greek root, pornos graphein, means to describe the harlot's work, to describe the business of the harlot. And what is it that the harlot does? The harlot uses or abuses human sexual formation for pleasure only, making that the objective of everything. It is that understanding of human sexual relations that I think we ought to know is now at the bottom of the assault that is taking place on the traditional family. We are in a debate right now over what marriage will be, and some folks want us to accept an understanding of the marriage relationship in which that sexual relationship is defined as being between two people who have no possibility, in principle, of ever producing a child. And that means that the whole connection between human sexuality and God's plan of procreation is destroyed if we embrace this understanding of human sexuality. But what is that understanding, at the end of the day? It is a pornographic understanding of human sexual relations I think that one of the reasons we are seeing this understanding on the march That means that, in effect, the war against pornography is a war against that mentality which is creating the fertile ground for the whole crisis of the family, which in the end is the crisis of our whole society. Property rights The idea of the "pursuit of happiness" in our great Declaration presupposes the right of property, a right our Founders understood was inseparable from all other unalienable rights. Without the right to pursue our individual version of the American Dream The right of property has long been threatened not only by unsound schemes of taxation, but by intrusions into the personal control of private property. The result has been a pervasive loss of opportunity in the marketplace for the common man and a disruption of normal principles of supply and demand, those necessary to competition and to the creation of fair prices for such things as housing, undeveloped property, and a broad range of goods and services. Today, disruption of the right of property is threatened additionally by extreme environmental values that place greater importance on the so-called "rights" of animals, trees, and streams than on the legitimate and essential needs of mankind Religious freedom The "separation of church and state" doctrine is a misinterpretation of the Constitution. The First Amendment prohibition of established religion aims at forbidding all government-sponsored coercion of religious conscience. It does not forbid all religious influence upon politics or society. The free exercise of religion means nothing if, in connection with the ordinary events and circumstances of life, individuals are forbidden to act upon their religious faith. I would do everything in my power, through public discourse and persuasion, by proposing legislation, and by careful scrutiny of the candidates for judicial appointments, to turn the tide against constitutional rulings that undermine religious freedom. I oppose any efforts to use government power to impose views that contravene religious conscience on matters such as abortion and homosexuality. Right to keep and bear arms I am a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment. The right to keep and bear arms was included in the Bill of Rights so that when, by a long train of abuses, government evinces a methodical design upon our natural rights, we will have the means to protect and recover those rights. In fact, if we make the judgment that our rights are being systematically violated, we have not merely the right, but the duty, to resist and overthrow the power responsible. That duty requires that we maintain the material capacity to resist tyranny, if necessary The gun control agenda is based on the view that ordinary citizens cannot be trusted to use the physical power of arms responsibly. But a people that cannot be trusted with guns cannot be trusted with the much more dangerous powers of self-government. The gun control agenda is thus an implicit denial of the human capacity for self-government and is tyrannical in principle. School choice The court-initiated prohibition of school prayer is only the symptom of a deeper problem Government money is increasingly used to enforce a low quality, crass form of vocationalism in the School-to-Work scheme, while the same educrats debase traditional academics with such fads as Whole Language Learning and Fuzzy Math. Parents and local citizens often know better than their educrat masters, but find themselves unable to resist the power of an entrenched and costly monopoly. Education reform is thus a question of liberty and self-government. I strongly favor school choice approaches that empower parents to take control of their children's education, in accordance with the parents' faith and values. We not only need prayer in schools, we need schools that are in the hands of people who pray. Above all, we must break the government monopoly on public education. Sex education Human sexuality is primarily a matter of moral and not just physical health. So-called "health-based" sex education programs have done more harm than good. They too often encourage adolescents to consider sexual activity apart from marriage and family life. Especially in government schools, where teachers feel they must deal with sexual matters without reference to moral authority, these courses result in a vapid, context-free presentation of sexual mechanics which degrades and debases the meaning of relations between the sexes. Sex education is, as a rule, the private responsibility of parents. The government should not usurp this role. Where parents choose to encourage school-based instruction, I strongly support abstinence-based approaches for young adults. Social security reform Two principles must govern any reform of Social Security: (1) promises must be kept, and (2) future generations must have more choice, as well as a higher return on their savings, through market investments. We must keep the promises that have been made to current participants of the system, while returning control of current earnings and future security to each individual citizen. I strongly support a fundamentally new approach for younger workers, placing them in control of the investments made with their savings dollars. The elimination of the income tax will make tax-privileged "retirement" accounts irrelevant Taxation / government spending Tyrannical taxation, and excessive government spending and borrowing, are not only threats to our economy The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 85 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed. We need to return to the Constitution of economic liberty that our Founders intended to be a permanent bulwark of our political liberty. The income tax in effect makes us vassals of the government Only the abolition of the income tax will restore the basic American principle that our income is both our own money and our own private business Replacing the income tax with a national sales tax would rejuvenate independence and responsibility in our citizens. True economic liberty and moral revival go hand in hand. A national sales tax would also put the American citizen back in control of fiscal policy. The best way to curtail government spending is to cut taxes, because they can't spend what they don't get. With a sales tax, we could deny funds to a spendthrift government But we must also take away the government's credit card. With limits on both tax revenue and borrowing, the Federal government would finally be forced to get serious about spending cuts. That's why a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, with barriers to both borrowing and spending, is the best way to secure budget discipline. Tort reform We need to get a handle on malpractice lawsuits, by sensibly capping malpractice awards. The trial lawyers are drawing hundreds of millions of dollars from our health care system every year through unfair or unreasonable lawsuits against doctors. These lawsuits force doctors to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in malpractice insurance. When you visit the doctor, part of the cost for that visit is to cover the malpractice insurance. The real crisis happens when you need a specialized doctor in an emergency and the closest one is four hours away, because the cost to practice medicine in the state of Illinois is just too high. We're driving some of our best doctors from the state. My opponent sees nothing wrong with the situation, and refuses to seek limitations on malpractice suit awards. United Nations / sovereignty The fundamental goal of American statesmanship must be to maintain an independent sphere of sovereign American interests and principles, and to pursue them in the world with prudence and courage, retaining the awareness that the United States is responsible for its own destiny. Whatever benefits of international cooperation and consultation the United Nations has made possible, it has from its flawed founding been a source of dangerously naive globalist dreams. Some American politicians have been so corrupted by the internationalist ideal that they cannot resist the temptation to elevate the United Nations into a supra-national entity that threatens American sovereignty. Should this pernicious tendency persist, the United States will have to withdraw from the United Nations, and yet firmly maintain our ongoing international responsibilities as a sovereign nation and world leader. Ultimately, it is more important that the United States of America should survive in freedom than that the United Nations should survive at all. War on terror Some people say that the war on terror is an issue, and I say, "What issue?" We have people wanting to kill us "What do you do about the war on terror" is like asking, "Do you want to die." No we don't I think we have to destroy their infrastructure and topple the governments that are willing to aid and abet them and possibly give them weapons of mass destruction that could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. That's what President Bush did, and that's what he did in Iraq. Based on the information he had, if he would have acted in any other way, he would have been irresponsible. I would rather have a President who is able to make a tough decision The wisdom of hindsight will leave hundreds of thousands of people dead. The wisdom of hindsight arrives too late to make the decision, and that's why I think John Kerry is unfit to be president. He is clearly somebody who would rely on the wisdom of hindsight, and that would get us all killed. Welfare / family disintegration Most of our costly government welfare programs aim to deal with problems related to the breakdown of moral standards and self-discipline. We will go bankrupt as a nation if we continue trying to pay the ever-increasing costs of society's moral disintegration. We must end government programs like the family-destroying welfare system and sex-education courses that encourage promiscuity. These programs actually hasten the moral breakdown. Our first priority should be restoring the moral and material support for the marriage-based, two-parent family. I think that's vital to the future of the country. I believe that we need to mobilize folks, and get them to think in faith terms instead of in terms of selfish interest We're paying a deep, huge cost for the moral weakness of the society, and then we act as if that's a money problem. I don't believe it is, and I think we know it's not. We need to start addressing the real underlying cause of these challenges and to recapture a sense of the moral foundation, so that we can restore the moral discipline, restore the sense of commitment to true family life that then provides the basis for economic strength in our communities, for better performance for our children in our schools, for a greater sense of responsibility on the part of parents toward those children, and so forth and so on. We know that these are the keys to real progress, and it's time we got out and voted like we know. For more on Alan's views, click here. |
